Advantages

Filters that further improve compression: REP (finds repetitions at the distances up to 1gb), DICT (dictionary replacements for texts), DELTA (improves compression of tables in binary data), BCJ (executables preproccesor) and LZP (removes repetitions in texts)

Special compression algorithms are used in fast compression modes (GRZIP for texts and Tornado for binary data)

Overall, 11 compression algorithms and filters are included (compared to 3 in 7-zip and 7 in RAR) and this number still grows

Smart file sorting that groups similar files together and fully customizable sorting order (see below) further improve compression

Typically, FreeArc works 2-5 times faster than best programs in each compression class (ccm, 7-zip, rar, uharc -mz, pkzip) while retaining the same compression ratio; from technical grounds, it’s superior to any existing practical compressor

Moreover, you can use any external program as compressor or filter as easy as internal ones, with Precomp, ECM, CCM(x), PPMonstr, Durilca, LPAQ, UDA and PAQ are already preconfigured in arc.ini as shipped

You can fine-tune settings for each compression algorithm, and which compression algorithms are used for each type of files; you can create new compression profiles and modify existing ones; use -dic$ option in order to see all details of compression used

Compared to RAR and 7-zip, FreeArc at this moment lacks the following: multi-volume archives, 64-bit version, storing of
file attributes/extended timestamps/NTFS streams in the archive, bcj2, data segmentation. These are planned to be fixed in subsequent versions.